The Hero and the Hidden Royal - Renae Kaye Page 0,31

her desk and found Martin’s name. “Could you go to Entrance Three? We need you to go to Boardroom South Six this morning.”

While she finished the call, Derek played with a pen he’d picked up from her desk so she knew where he was. Elaine sighed as she hung up the phone and resumed their conversation. “I don’t know the full details of what’s happening,” Elaine said to Derek, “but it has something to do with the Duke of Roses disappearing. I don’t know anything apart from my instructions here.” She pointed to her list.

“Alesander? You mean they still haven’t found him?”

“No. And now the Duke of Arles has disappeared too.”

“What? Both of them?”

“Yes.”

“Do they suspect someone here at the Municipal?” Derek asked in astonishment. “Is that why all the security?”

“I don’t know,” Elaine admitted. “But if you know what’s good for you, you shouldn’t ask too many questions.” She ran her finger down the list again as the phone in front of her began to ring. “You’re cleared to go to your office. You’re not on the list of people to be seen this morning.” She reached for the phone and Derek turned away, muttering sarcastically to himself, “On a list of people to be seen? Wouldn’t that be lovely?”

His office was locked and appeared to be undisturbed. Maybe Sylvie had kept them from searching his office if there had been some sort of investigating going on. Despite appearances, he checked the most valuable artifacts in the archives. The priceless ones were kept in a vault, but he kept a few close by, their value not deemed high enough for vault security.

Once satisfied all was okay, he pulled out the valet’s journal and tried to get some work completed. An hour later he stopped and stared at his notes, frowning deeply. The journal mentioned a safety deposit box of some sort inside the castle. The valet had previously written of an inner domus tresorie, which Derek had translated as a treasury room inside the castle. Most castles had a stronghold room where jewels and valuable items could be kept, but this one reference on this page called it a domestique tresorie. The phrasing appeared to refer to a smaller safe room. A treasure box or a wall safe, perhaps?

He had inventories of the Castle de Fleur and none of them mentioned another treasure room or vault in the castle. And this one seemed to be hidden close to a room where the servants went a lot, but was also close to the main bedchamber. A safe in the dressing room? The servants would be in and out of the dressing room frequently.

The problem was he was translating words from a barely literate servant from centuries ago who used a mixture of Latin and French in his writings. Derek was translating foreign language, old language, uneducated language, and trying to piece it all together. But the phrase “domestique tresorie” was ringing bells with him.

When he’d said to Sam that he’d been a good student, he hadn’t been lying. Safety for Derek had meant being shut up in a room, and boredom had pushed him to books. He seemed to have a knack for retaining information and it helped him when archiving. He would analyze a lot of material and have to cross-reference items, but having a good memory helped track down the cross-references.

Now that memory was pinging. Where else had he seen that phrase?

He was scanning through another text that had been translated years ago when there was a knock at his office door. “Derek? Are you in there? It’s Sylvie.”

Letting out a deep breath which allowed his clothes to shimmer back into place, he quickly opened the door to Sylvie. She stepped in smartly and closed the door behind her with a guilty look.

“Sorry,” she said. “I needed a five minute breather and somewhere to hide. I thought your office would be a good place.”

Sylvie had been Derek’s first grade teacher. She was a small woman with a ton of personality. It had taken her nearly the whole year to get Derek to trust her, and she’d never done anything to abuse that trust in the years since. Her mild super power basically gave her extended vision. She had a greater periphery vision than most people, almost spherical in nature, she’d once told Derek. And if she concentrated really hard, she could move that vision to look around corners. Not exactly a helpful power, but great for teaching a